by M. O’Keefe
I wasn’t worth it.
Tougher versions of the speech involved a fight and me going to jail so I didn’t have to pay back any debt. I’d spend the rest of my life in jail, and maybe that would be okay. I worried about Pest in that scenario, but Simon could figure it out.
But in the reality of the moment, I didn’t say any of my speeches.
And I didn’t start that fight.
Because, oh my God…all I felt was relief. So much fucking relief my body went numb.
Just like when I’d been a kid and the cops caught me living on the streets. I’d fought. I’d fought as hard as I could, but inside…it was pure relief.
It’s over. I can stop waiting for this shitty thing to happen because it’s happening.
“You made a promise that night. “
“I remember,” I said. “What’s in the envelope?” I jerked my chin at that envelope, unwilling to touch it until I had to.
“The favor Mr. Bates needs you to do for him.”
“How bad is it?” I asked. My mouth was stone dry. I took a sip of my Guinness, but it did little good.
“Haven’t you already learned bad is relative?” Carissa said. “It’s simply a matter of what you can survive.”
I felt the old questions pull at me, the morbid curiosity of what had happened to her in that hospital.
How much have you had to survive?
But I swallowed those questions, because if she hadn’t answered them then, the sleek, still woman in front of me definitely wouldn’t answer now.
“That’s what I’m worried about,” I said. “Will I survive what’s in that envelope?”
One thin shoulder lifted in a half shrug, and she took another sip of her martini.
Right. Message received. My survival was not the goal. Or even a consideration.
Still, I didn’t touch the envelope. I didn’t reach for it. It sat between us like a snake.
“You can’t say no,” she said. “You understand that, don’t you?”
“I can say no; I just have to be ready to go to jail.”
She sighed as if frustrated by me. “Did you watch the news?”
“I saw some of it.”
“A cop was shot,” she said. “Sitting in his squad car eating a sandwich. Someone walked up and shot him in broad daylight. No witnesses. No weapons on the scene.”
“The cop’s in critical condition,” I said.
She glanced down at her watch. “As of fifteen minutes ago, he’s dead.”
“You’re saying if I don’t do what’s in that envelope, that’s what you’ll pin on me?”
Cop killer.
I had the strange sensation of falling even as I sat there.
Carissa just watched me, her dark eyes giving away nothing.
“I think you’re bluffing.” I had no idea if she was bluffing, but fuck… that much power? How? This wasn’t a fucking movie. It was life.
From her bag she pulled her cell phone and tapped away at the screen, her eyebrow arched like she was proving something to me. And then, just as she set down the phone, into the bar walked two policemen.
Two fucking policemen and they just stared at her. And she stared at me.
“Am I bluffing, Tommy?”
Mouth dry with adrenaline, I shook my head.
She turned and smiled at the men. “False alarm,” she said, and they left without another word.
Jesus Christ.
I put a finger on the edge of the envelope, pulling it slowly toward me.
“You made the right choice, Tommy.”
“I’m not… I can’t hurt anyone. If what’s in this envelope requires me to hurt someone, I’d rather go to jail.”
“No one is getting hurt.” She took a sip of her martini. “Not if you do everything we ask."
“We?” My stomach went sour. “You work for Bates? Is that how he made you pay your debt?”
She shook her head. “There is no debt involved.”
The envelope had a rectangular bulge at the bottom, like a passport or some kind of ID. Another bulge next to it, a small thick square. Other than that, it was just a big pale brown envelope.
My size makes people assume things about me. Guys try to start fights with me just to see if they can take down the big guy. Even my job makes people think they know something more about me than that I work with stone. The way I talk, which admittedly isn’t great. The neighborhood I live in. Girls, when they got to know me and I tell them about the foster homes, they get this look in their eye that tells me how they’re filling in all the blanks. With violence. They’re filling in the blanks with violence.
I’d avoided jail thanks to Bates, and after that I made every decision I could to stay out of trouble, because the world wanted guys like me to be in trouble.
It’s hard not to be violent when the world pushes you toward it.
“I’m not interested in going to jail for a small crime just to avoid going to jail for a big crime.”
I looked up and found her smiling at me, the twist of her lips sad and drenched in memory.
“I said that to Bates, but he thinks he has something that you’ll believe is worth going to jail for if it comes to that.”
I put my hand on Pest’s head, feeling the bone beneath her skin. The velvet-soft fur of her ear, reliable comfort since I found her six years ago living behind a dumpster, surviving on scraps just like Simon and me.
“What’s worth going to jail for?” I asked, braced for the worst.
“Beth.”
Carissa stood up, drained her martini and gathered her bag, all while I gaped at her.
“You know where Beth is?” I asked.
“This gets done tonight,” she said, tapping the envelope. “And you don’t get a second chance, not with Bates.”
With that she turned and walked out the door, as sleek and as sharp as a blade.
And like a knife, she left me in pieces.
After all these years…
Beth.
6
Tommy
I lived above a pho restaurant off O’Farrell and Leavenworth, just behind one of the apartment buildings with the doorman. I was about three blocks west of the first apartment Simon and I had lived in after I got out of the hospital years ago.
We’d slept on the floor with the cockroaches, and we both got two jobs each, just so we could afford the one room. After Simon went to Los Angeles for school, I stayed there a little longer until I got the job working construction and made enough to move out. I’ve been living in the same three rooms ever since. I could get a nicer place in a nicer neighborhood, but that seemed like a lot of work and the Tenderloin was home. I wasn’t sure I’d feel comfortable in another neighborhood. There weren’t that many places in San Francisco that looked like me. Felt like me.
Pest stopped to investigate the edge of a building and some other dog’s piss, but I whistled once at her and she abandoned her investigation. A cop drove by, nice and slow, just making the rounds through the neighborhood like they did every night. I felt that envelope, hot against my body where I had it tucked between my jacket and my shirt.
A shitty rumpled paper Pandora’s box.
I hadn’t looked inside it yet, but I had no doubt whatever was in it, it wasn’t legal.
And it was going to unleash a shit ton of trouble on my life. It already had.
Part of me had wanted to open that envelope right there on the bar and find out where Beth was, but a strange burst of caution stopped me.
Caution and Lucy.
Lucy, after Carissa left, came running out of the kitchen, more shaken than I’d ever seen her—and I’d seen her break up some serious bar fights.
“How the fuck do you know her?” I asked Lucy, who, with shaking hands, poured herself a shot of whiskey and knocked it back.
She held the bottle toward me, but I shook my head.
“How the fuck do you?” she snapped. She leaned forward over the edge of the bar, her voice dropped to a
whisper even though the place was almost entirely empty. “There’s been a pretty big shakedown around here and I don’t know who she is or who she works for, but she is in it up to her neck. She scares the shit out of me.”
You should have seen her seven years ago.
Lucy had dumped the burgers in a box and handed it to me, and I got the real clear message that me and Pest weren’t welcome back if Carissa was going to be regularly joining me.
I’d left Lucy’s wanting to say good-bye to her. Wanting to tell her that I appreciated all the kindness she’d given me all these years. That I was sorry that night I’d turned her down, that it had been a mistake.
I’d left Lucy’s feeling like I’d never see her again.
The envelope, burning my skin through my shirt, was going to change everything.
Beth. After all these years, what was I supposed to do about Beth?
I’d put that night away. I’d put those feelings away like they belonged to a different person.
That kid who thought he loved a girl who was worlds better than him, that boy who thought he could save her, save everyone… That kid didn’t survive the beating the Pastor gave him.
It was only me now, and I didn’t care. I worked really fucking hard not to care.
I crossed the street to my apartment, walking past the front bumper of a shiny black German-made sedan parked in front. New, from the looks of it. Someone was being reckless parking it so close to the worst neighborhood in the city.
Pest made her way up the stairs to my apartment, one at a time, her tail wagging despite the effort of all those steps.
Inside I gave Pest her burger, breaking it into pieces in her bowl. “Sorry, girl, for making you wait.”
I took my dinner—which I was no longer hungry for—into my living room and set it on my coffee table. I put the envelope next to it and sat down on my beat-up leather couch, the familiar creak of its old springs catching my weight.
Still, I didn’t open the envelope. I turned it over. And then over again. Something in the bottom rattled.
Over the years I’d imagined Beth in about a million scenarios. Living a good life far away from this city and its memories. I imagined her with a boyfriend, some guy who treated her right, and I wanted to punch him in the face on principle. I imagined her putting St. Joke’s and that night a million miles behind her.
I imagined her never, ever imagining me.
She got out of the hell where we’d met—the only place the two of us made any kind of sense—and she moved on.
Moved on. Novel fucking idea.
I tore open the envelope, turned it upside down and let the contents fall onto the coffee table. Pest, done with her burger, came to sniff at mine.
“Go ahead,” I told her, and like the delicate lady she was, she grabbed the burger in the corner of her mouth and flopped down to eat it at my feet.
On the table in front of me was a driver’s license with my driver’s license picture but a different name.
Sam Johnson.
“Jeez, Carissa,” I muttered. “That’s the best you can do?” Sam Johnson screamed fake name. I didn’t even bother wondering how they’d gotten the DMV picture of me. Just another example of the power Bates carried in his pockets like spare change.
There was a limo service ID with my picture and Sam Johnson’s name.
And there was a key. A BMW key fob. I had a strange chill in my stomach, and in the dark shadows of my apartment I went to my front window overlooking the street and the black BMW sitting in front. I hit the unlock button, and the lights blinked on.
The BMW was mine.
Fuck.
Back at the table I picked up the single sheet of printer paper. One side was blank, but when I flipped it over on the other side it said:
Pick up:
1139 Mission Ridge Rd Santa Barbara
Delivery:
1165 Tegner St
Sunshot, AZ
Delivery window 8-9 AM
Text DONE to this number when delivery complete
There was a cell phone number scrawled alongside.
I collapsed backward onto my couch, staring up at the lights from my front window cutting cross patterns through the shadows on my dark ceiling.
What was I supposed to be delivering? And what did Beth have to do with this?
Fuck. I had to be in Arizona by eight a.m. with a stop in Santa Barbara? I glanced at my watch; it was six p.m. now. I had to go. Like…now.
In my bedroom I threw a clean pair of jeans, some underwear, toothpaste and toothbrush and clean shirt in a bag. I also took a second to take off my dark Henley and put on a dress shirt and my only pair of dress pants. It was as close to looking like a professional driver as I could get. With my bag over my shoulder I turned to see Pest in the doorway, watching me with her tail wagging.
I’d be gone two days, barring something going wrong. I couldn’t leave her alone for all that time.
Because something was probably going to go wrong.
“Wanna go for a ride?” I asked, and she barked once in reply. “Let’s go, girl.”
I grabbed the stuff from the table and headed down to the car, which again lit up and honked when I hit the button. My work truck parked in back was going to feel like shit when this little joyride was over.
Work. Crap.
Inside the car Pest predictably called shotgun. Across the steering wheel was a black tie and a handwritten note, pinned to it.
Was pretty sure you wouldn’t have one of these—C.
Yeah, well, I didn’t. Points to Carissa. I looped the tie around my neck but didn’t bother tying it. I grabbed my phone and texted Paul from work.
Emergency. I won’t be at work for a few days.
He texted back right away. Emergency? With what?
I nearly laughed. Right. What in my life had emergencies? Pest turned a circle in the seat and laid down with a flop on the fine leather seats. I imagined returning this car covered in dog fur, and it wasn’t a bad thought.
Pest, I texted.
Crap. Okay. Let me know.
I smiled. Pest went to work with me every day so she was as much a part of the crew as some of the new guys. And I had enough good will built up that a few days off for my dog was not a big deal.
I mean, it was kind of a sad deal, that the only thing in my life was Pest. But whatever.
Crap. And Simon.
Dinner’s off, I texted to him. Will talk later.
I pulled up an app on my phone and plugged in all the addresses to get the route.
I didn’t expect an answer from Simon, but the text bubble appeared.
What happened? he asked.
I thought about lying. But I didn’t lie to Simon. There was no point. And this… Fuck, if Bates was coming for me, he could be coming for Simon, too.
That old debt came due, I texted, feeling like that was the only safe thing to say. Have to go.
And do what? he wrote back. How bad is it?
Not sure yet, I texted. But—I took a deep breath—it’s about Beth.
I put the phone down, put the car in gear and took off into the twilight, heading, it seemed, right back into my past.
7
Tommy
We had an elaborate note system in St. Joke’s. Scraps of paper slipped under doors, tucked in the pages of Bibles, crumpled in hands that passed dirty dishes from the table to the sink. We were like a spy network constantly gauging the Pastor’s mood and the Wife’s indifference. For months I knew Carissa’s and Rosa’s handwriting better than their voices.
At school the habit was hard to break, but we were a lot less careful about it.
In the third or fourth week of Beth’s stay at St. Joke’s, my English class was canceled and we got shoved into a computer lab with the students that were there working. When I saw Beth was in the class, her hair pulled back in a big gingery knot, my heart beat so hard I felt it behind my eyes, in the palms of my hands. The base of my dick.
&nb
sp; One wild, solid thunk of happiness.
Sweat slicked my hands, making some of the cuts that refused to heal sting, but I barely felt it. That was the power of Beth.
I tried not to grin as I walked down the last aisle to where she was sitting, and like God wanted me there, the computer beside her was empty.
And I was about to ask, is it cool if I sit here, when she looked up at me with a smile. I swear, that smile was like nothing I’d ever seen. Like nothing that had ever been flashed my way.
I had a few memories of my mother, a harried whisper, the strong tug of her hand on mine. Picnic lunches on a red blanket and the rumble of her voice as she read me a story. I remembered enough to know she was real young and we lived lean and there’d been scary times. She’d left me alone a lot. Died of an overdose in someone else’s apartment and no one came looking for me in ours. I’d been alone for days, until hunger drove me out into the streets.
And she’d been pretty, or maybe every kid feels that way about their mom. I don’t know. We didn’t talk about moms a lot at St. Joke’s. We thought about them constantly but rarely said a word about them.
But I knew I got my blond hair and blue eyes from her and her smile had made me feel safe.
But that smile was never like this.
Never for me.
I can’t tell you what it was like having someone after having no one. And that person was so happy I was there, she couldn’t contain it, didn’t even bother to try. Didn’t even care who saw it.
You, that smile said, make me happy.
I didn’t ask to sit down. I just sat in the spot like it had been left for me.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered and I started to explain but the teacher shushed me fast.
And just as fast Beth opened her notebook and took out her pencil. I grabbed my pencil out of my butt pocket, the eraser long ago chewed off.
Class canceled, I wrote. Teacher got sick.
Our teacher is high, she wrote. Literally.
I glanced up at the front of the class, and the teacher was organizing the pencil drawer at the top of the desk.
